Alexander and Alestria (22 page)

She had violent headaches, and still she grew thinner. Unlike some women who grow more beautiful in pregnancy, Alestria grew plain. Brown marks appeared at her temples, her cheeks became gaunt, and her forehead looked disproportionately tall and ponderous. But her husband had regained all his lust for life. Alestria was dying, and Alexander was thriving. He talked loudly, jubilantly, took the queen in his arms, patted her stomach, and boasted about how beautiful she was.

"Look how beautiful my Alestria is!" he exulted, calling me as a witness. Then, not waiting for any remark from me, he added: "Ania, you shall watch over my child! I spent thirty years looking for a queen," he confessed with tears in his eyes. "I rode all the way to Asia to meet her. I survived injury, poisons, the cold, sunstroke, evil spells, and exhaustion to reach the happiness I have today. My god has blessed me, how lucky I am!"

I said nothing. All I could read on my queen's blotchy face were suffering and death. I slipped out of the encampment to stray through the forests. Despite the soldiers' warnings I felt no fear: no tigers or boa constrictors, no ape-men or speaking parrots, could frighten me. Armed with my two daggers forged by the People of the Volcano, I walked on and sat down at the foot of a tree to shed a few tears. Why had my life changed overnight? Why had the vastness of the steppes become the torments of the jungle? Why had the simplicity of the earth and sky become the labyrinth of this forest teeming with smells and colors and sounds? I no longer knew where to find good and where to find evil. I could no longer distinguish between beauty and sadness. Had I lost my mind? Was I, too, haunted by spirits? Where were they taking me? Toward the light or toward the shades?

I wept again and again until all the despair was emptied out of me and hope filled me once again. Then I wiped away my tears and went back to the tented city, to Alexander and Alestria. Although lost in my own distress, I knew that the God of Ice had not abandoned me. He was making me tackle a slope where the north wind blew hard and night seemed to go on forever.

In the past Alestria had led the troop of Amazons, and I, Ania, had galloped behind her without a care in the world.

Now my god had separated me from my queen.

With no guide, with no friend, alone, I had to climb the glacier.

In the land of the Indies night was dark and the moon icy. The river Hydaspe whispered in the distance while a Persian soldier played the flute nearby.

I had seized the Birdless Rock that resisted Hercules in ancient times. This conquest was a more dazzling exploit than the twelve labors accomplished by the son of Zeus. From now on no hero and no mortal could act as an example for Alexander.

I was slipping into the infinity of the universe, oppressed and yet comforted by solitude. I could still hear Philip's howls and Olympias's weeping. I could still hear my own impassioned speeches and the bustle of soldiers marching toward Persia. But they were now merely the feeble echo of previous lives. Countless battles had raised me to the world of the night and sparkling lights. Far from earthly fates, up in the star-filled sky, I had no friends anymore, no troops. I heard neither their calls nor their cries. I was accompanied by silence, sometimes threatening, sometimes soothing. Death had never felt so close, but I was less hostile to its company. It was once a constant threat, but now I saw it as the accomplishment of my person, as release for my army. I trusted the gods who had granted me the time to wage war, and I waited for the final day when death would make me immortal.

Alestria's belly was growing. I had an heir! The thought of it worried me and filled me with joy. Would I be a good father? Would I have my mother's patience and Aristotle's wisdom? Would I be able to make of him a courageous and well-reasoned prince? How could I bequeath him this vast empire I myself had never succeeded in governing?

I had always desired strong young men; they were like so many rocks strewn along my way, tackled with tact and determination. Born in different lands and brought up in different cultures, some understood the calendar of the stars, others counted using sticks or had their own strange way of saddling horses. Each of them harbored a hidden treasure, unwritten poetry, an understanding of the birth of the world. Once we were naked, our differences melted away. Male flesh is a wild land in which no civilization and no religion has ever taken seed. Two men together is a meeting with oneself; it is confrontation and physical gratification in step with each other.

Alestria was not my reflection. I understood nothing of her body, even less of this growing belly. I did not seek gratification in her: I united myself with her strength, which perpetuated life.

I found Alestria disconcerting; her metamorphosis amazed me, frightened me, and fascinated me. I kept taking her in my arms, breathing in the smell of her and touching her swelling breasts. Her hair was becoming dry, her cheeks blotchy, her lips cracked. All these flaws, like the impurities of the moon, served only to make her shine more brightly.

I begged her to undress, and lay next to her, fingering this body in which another body was germinating. I pressed my ear to her stomach and listened to the rustling of a new world. I looked between her legs and wondered how my son would reach me through that tiny channel. I was gripped by a nameless fear, nauseous and vertiginous. I felt even more vulnerable and disarmed than my pregnant queen. I was afraid she might trip, afraid of conspiracies; I could not leave her side. I took her everywhere with me and settled her where my eyes could always alight on her. Her presence reassured me. She and our child, they were all that was left of my journey toward the future.

Inside a man's body I surrendered to a war of pleasure. The struggle was a game of balance, a dance of well-mastered movements. In Alestria's belly I was absorbed, I became clumsy. I carried her heavy body on my back; she held me to her breasts swollen with milk. We flew together through the night. We flew together toward the dawn.

Alestria had stopped talking of going to the front. Alexander had succeeded in holding his queen back by giving her a child. She had stopped waiting for the king outside the city gates but stayed calmly in her tent talking to her belly. She spent her time sewing children's clothes, but she was not gifted with a needle. She sewed so badly that her servants secretly unpicked her work and pieced it together again. Unaware of her ineptitude, my queen took pleasure in her sewing.

Having always been distant with the warriors' wives, she now started spending time with them and asking them about childbirth. Women were eager to give her advice, to offer her particular food and drink, and to shower her with flattery, which made her smile dreamily.

The king interrupted his campaigns to watch over her. I saw the loathsome Bagoas prowling around our city once more. He had grown even fatter, his double chin gleaming amid the soldiers' thin, honed faces. Alexander had brought back an army sickened and demoralized by wind, rain, and arrows.

The city was abuzz with drumming, singing, and banqueting once more. The king and his men drank to the birth of his heir. Alestria wore a veil to receive their compliments, and I stood behind her, knowing she was tired and suffering.

But Alestria was proud, and she wanted to please the man she loved. She stood close to him like a faithful sentry. Back in her tent, she fell asleep exhausted, but the king, who was always overflowing with ideas and energy, would not let her rest. He woke her so soon, asking her to go with him to inspect his army or to watch them in training: he was devising a new plan of attack.

Worn down by such demands, she fainted. She was brought back to our quarters, and I, Ania, fussed over her to bring her round. She woke slowly, looking lost, as if she had been on a long journey. The king sent messengers to inquire how she was, and these boorish soldiers-who had been given instructions to see her with their own eyes-argued with me at the door of her tent. Alestria rose to her feet, changed her clothes, and asked to be taken to her husband. Alexander was a pitcher full of cool fresh water, and she wanted to drink it down to the last drop.

Alestria's belly swelled while her body grew thinner. It was such a small belly! Compared to the great mountains borne by other pregnant women, hers was a tiny hill. Unaware of its meager volume, the king and queen went into ecstasies every time they looked at it.

They spent hours admiring that belly. Alexander stroked it and pressed his cheek up against it, speaking to her navel. Alestria lay smiling, and she too stroked it, answering for her belly. The king and queen conversed through that belly, both laughing and crying, both forgetting that it was abnormally small, both believing that from this minute hill a great man would be born.

They argued over his name. They argued over each item of clothing he would wear. They argued over the choice of tutor: Alexander wanted to summon Aristotle, while Alestria did not want it to be a man.

Alexander sought out midwives, not trusting any of the women in his entourage. The queen's belly had become the focus of all intrigues and plots. Everyone knew that the birth of an heir would annihilate the generals' hopes of acceding to the throne in the event of Alexander's death. In the end he conceived the extraordinary idea of entrusting this task to Bagoas. I, Ania, screamed with indignation.

Bagoas, that glistening worm! Bagoas, who slept with men to sound out how loyal they were to the king? Bagoas the informer, the spy, the torturer who was neither man nor woman? He would not touch my queen's little toe! It would be I, Ania, I the Amazon, who drew this child from that belly, despite the curse of our ancestors.

I cannot tell you where I come from, my child. In the early days of my life, I crawled among wild horses, drinking a mare's milk when I was hungry and thirsty. I pulled at her mane and heaved myself onto her back, then clung to her neck as she galloped. My first mother smelled of sunlight, grass, and dung. She licked me from head to foot and showed her yellow teeth when she laughed. Under the starry sky of the steppes she slept on her feet with me between her legs. She taught me that language is a music and that whoever opens their heart to the music understands the language of grasshoppers, butterflies, birds, wolves, and trees.

One day nomads appeared on the horizon and chased us for days on end. One after another the horses were captured with a long rope, and I was taken to the chief's wife. My second mother taught me to dress myself and walk with shoes. She burrowed me under a blanket with her children, and I escaped at night to sleep outside the tent under the stars. One evening I was woken by the thunder of hooves: horsemen brandishing sabers descended on our tents, killing the whole tribe in their sleep and stealing their horses and cattle. Hiding in a bush with my hands over my ears, I saw and heard nothing. I lived among the corpses until the day another tribe passed and put me up on a horse's back, but I never stayed with my adoptive families after that, leaving them after one season. I was too afraid of seeing them massacred by the horsemen galloping out of the huge opening between the earth and the sky.

One day I heard the legend of the Amazons who had no fear of men, and I wanted to be like them. I walked alone toward the north of the steppes. Three seasons later an Amazon discovered me and took me to their queen. She undressed me, pointed at the scar on my breast, and wept tears of joy. I do not remember where that scar came from. It looks like an iron branding or an animal bite. It is the secret inscribed by the God of Ice.

I did not see my mother Talaxia very often. It was a time of great upheaval: the tribes on the steppes fought constantly with each other. After several seasons of drought, good pastureland was rare, and horses and cattle were starving. Men turned to pillaging.

The queen disappeared frequently, and I was raised by Tan-kiasis, her serving woman, whom I called my aunt. It was she who fed me with goat's and cow's milk. Sometimes we had to break camp and gallop for days on end, pursued by our attackers. She tied me against her chest, and I rested my head between her breasts. Sometimes we were the ones who launched an attack, and then she would tie me to her back. I could feel her muscles tensing and relaxing. I clung to her heat and sweat, listening to the war cries reverberating through her body, and dozing to the clash of weapons and the whinnying of horses.

My aunt smelled of goat's milk and chrysanthemums. In summer I liked to lick the salt from her skin while she fanned me with large leaves and sung me tunes of the steppes. When my mother returned, her mare's hooves made the ground shake, and the pungent smell of unknown lands preceded her. She leaned over me and pinched my cheeks. She gave orders in her powerful voice, and all the girls started packing up: we had to leave. Every time my mother appeared, it was the sign for another departure. I was afraid of her; I did not want to leave. I wanted to stay between my aunt's breasts, at peace, forever.

My mother was strong and brutal, my aunt tender and gentle. Talaxia rode horses and fought with men. Tankiasis managed the girls and defended me. She brought me up to be intrepid and spontaneous as the queen, and tender and thoughtful as her serving woman. I am the fruit of two women who were sisters and lovers. I am the fruit of their love, which ended only when, one after the other, they left this lowly world.

One day I saw my mother return with one breast pierced by an arrow embellished with green feathers. My aunt called for a large pyre to be built and for Talaxia's body to be laid on top of it. With her hair awry and her body covered in sweat, she prostrated herself before that fire for several days.

Talaxia and Tankiasis had met when they were still young. My aunt had been married to a tribal chief, one of many wives living on colorful soft carpets in a vast tent. She had left her husband and her child, betrayed her family, abandoned her servants, torn her beautiful clothes, and handed out her jewels. She left in the middle of a dark night, on the back of a mare belonging to a woman known as the queen of Siberia. Talaxia and Tankiasis loved each other and never left each other. But my mother was not faithful; she made other seductions and had countless lovers, both men and women. She brought home other young women frantic with desire and admiration for her. Tankiasis-who had given up her original name, her mother, her sisters, and her child-accepted all these hardships because of that extraordinary emotion called love.